Even for Korea, This is NUTS

Last night we went to dinner for our friend Kristin's birthday. We had had a really good day beforehand, having spent the day wandering Mt. Yudal with Abby and Jason. The flowers are all in bloom right now on the mountain, so it was quite nice. Dawn and Abby both filled their respective camera's memory cards, and it was nice to be out in the (not so) fresh air for a while. We then bought some fruit, went back to Abby and Jason's and played cards while the chickens pooped all over the floor. Joyous times!

Then came time for dinner. We went to a restaurant called Gran Piatto, which is a place that Dawn and I have been from time to time since we've been here. Their pizza is actually rather good, but their service has always been sketchy, and their menu is retarded. It's usually a little pricy for us, but it is a nice place. Yesterday made us change our minds about ever going back to that horrid hell hole.

They have introduced a salad bar since last we were there. This could be a good thing. However, they have also introduced a ridiculous rule that defies all logic, even Korean. Here it is:

If you buy an entree, you get a salad bar plate for free.

Sounds good, doesn't it? However, if you wanted to, say share a pizza, you don't get a salad bar plate for free. Because apparently what they really meant was:

If ONE PERSON at your table doesn't order an entree, NOBODY gets free salad bar plates.
(This is, of course, not exactly what was on the menu, but it was in such broken English that I can't remember what it actually said. Suffice to say it was NOT clear.)

So last night there were about 10 of us, and Dawn and I just wanted to split a pizza. We didn't want anything to do with the salad bar, we just wanted pizza. But we figured that this should get us one plate of salad bar, because we're buying an entree. Nope. Obviously they don't want people sharing their salad bar plates, and that is understandable. But there are much better ways to do that, like, oh I don't know, interacting with your customers, instead of placing them behind a wall and ignoring them while they eat their meal, and standing in front of the counter talking to the other servers who also don't have any common sense. Jason also decided to order some wine, and for some reason they couldn't put the wine on our bill, so he had to pay cash up front. Seriously, this place is a logic vortex. It goes in but gets swirled around so badly that nobody can get a grasp on it.

The funny thing is, the only way we were able to figure out this nonsense was because we had Kristin's boyfriend Jeff there. "Jeff" is not his real name, but an adopted "English name" because sometimes it's just easier to introduce yourself as Jeff, rather than Hyeoug Jun. He was able to tell the waitress what we wanted, and then tell us that we weren't able to have it. Even funnier, he said himself "it is illogical". Sometimes I wonder if even Koreans are able to fathom the weirdness...